SportRackVista XL Rear Opening Cargo Box,Black

Very satisfied with our purchase. If you need some extra storage space for your vehicle, the Sport Rack Vista XL offers a lot of value for the money!We are a family of 6 (plus a dog), that does a fair amount of cross country travel since grandparents are spread out between Georgia and Texas. As the kiddos have grown, so did the space required to get everyone and their luggage packed in for a trip (not including Christmas presents like this past trip!!!). We previously had a soft sided roof top carrier that we used during our cross country move, but I did not like how it strapped down to the car, and required the contents inside to create some sort of uniform shape to the bag so it could be strapped down. I spent a lot of time researching options for a hard sided cargo carrier, and ultimately settled on this Sport Rack Vista XL box.We purchased this box right before our Christmas trip the year from Georgia back to Texas. The Amazon delivery service used to deliver this large item was very quick and easy, and we got the GIANT box delivered to our house and ready for the trip in just 3 days from order (and I requested a one day delay in shipping so someone would be home to accept). The cargo box comes fully assembled and arrived in excellent condition.Overall construction of the box is really good. The base of the box is molded well with a lot of ribbing to provide support in the bottom tub for your luggage/cargo. There is some side to side movement of the lid possible when its in the open position, but that is to be expected as the box is made from lightweight ABS plastic, and does have some flex/give in it. The lip on the lid where it meets the bottom tub when closed makes a nice secure fit between the top and bottom, and gives the box and lid a lot of structure when it is closed up. The hinges and latches all fit the box nicely and work well, and the overall fit and finish on the box was very nice. Mounting was very quick and easy on our factory Honda Odyssey rack. I had it installed in less than 10 minutes (including un packing). The mounting hardware provided is decent quality, but nothing particularly special (its just a few u-bolts, plates, and winged nuts for hand tightening).To be clear, I don't have any first hand experience with build quality on other boxes available to compare against, but from my research I feel that quality of the SportRack box is higher than that offered by other budget offerings like Walmart/Academy/Jegs/etc, and was pretty close to on-par with what I think you get from the higher end brands like Thule/Yakima/etc. SportRack is apparently owned by Thule as well, as shipping documentation on the box showed it shipped from Thule Inc. I also found some supporting info online that said Thule had purchased SportRack as their more budget friendly product line. I will say that the side hinged offerings of Thule's higher end boxes would make loading the box a little bit easier, but I didn't have any real heartburn getting the front hinged SportRack Vista loaded from the rear. Quite honestly, I still loaded the SportRack Vista it from the side, you just have to put the luggage in at the rear of the side where the opening is the largest, and then slide it forward. Not real difficult. *IF* you a little on the short side, or your vehicle is particularly tall, a side hinged box might offer better ease of loading. That said, the front hinged box does offer some extra security in regards to wind load not working against any of the latches. The SportRack Vista is essentially un-openable while driving down the road, as the air movement across the box would tend to keep the lid pushed down.Overall the box allowed us to load ALL of our big boxy suitcases on top of the van, along with some other assorted boxes/bags, and kept the rest of the interior of our car available for more oddly sized/delicate items, and anything we needed quick access to on our trip. This was one of the first trips that we didn't have an avalanche of stuff falling out of the back when we opened the tail gate, and didn't require us to go digging if we needed something. I'm also happy to report that we had no issues with the weather-resistance of the box. We essentially drove through non stop rain/drizzle both ways of our 900mi trip, and had ZERO issues with anything getting wet. There is no rubber seal between the lid and base, but the way the lip of the lid fits over the lip of the base, water doesn't have any real way to get in between the two unless it was just completely submerged. I certainly would still be careful about what you put into the cargo carrier overall, but I am VERY satisfied with how well it did with the weather.As far as driving feel, we pretty well did 75-85mph the entire trip on the freeway, and got not so much of a sound from the box, and it rode just fine. I didn't see any real impact on our mpg, although I'm sure there was some minor reduction if I actually calculated it out closely. Its a pretty large box sitting on top of the car, what do you expect? That said, its overall shape is well thought out, and it cuts through the air nicely on top of the car.If you're looking for a nice cargo box that is better than the budget offerings but can't really justify the cost or need of a Thule or Yakima at 2X the price, this box is HARD to beat. If I were going to leave the box on my vehicle all the time, or use it every weekend to haul outdoor equipment, absolutely go with a premier brand. For us though, this will be hung from the roof of the garage, and pulled down and used 2-3 times a year for the next how many ever years, and I'm expecting it to continue to give us the same great value as it did on its inaugural trip this past week.

Edit: I have added some notes after about a year and a half of use. Tldr: its still fantastic for the price, but its easy to break into, among some other problems.When I first received this cargo I was concerned at how flimsy the actual material was. But quickly discovered it was just enough to make it as durable as possible, as light as possible, and as big as possible. They balanced all of the decisions perfectly for a product you can go get stuff done with.Let me explain.I recently took this on a 4000 mile road trip, in that time I noticed the following:This thing had no durability issues, all “wobble” is side to side so while driving, all turbulence from the front is mitigated perfectly, I lost maybe 1mpg when I was expecting to lose 4-5. In addition I banged this thing on I dont know how many overhangs and the most I got was a scratch, because of how thin the material is it just bends a little to prevent any structural damage, then snaps right back into place.As far as weight I could easily lift this thing with one hand to put it on top of my car, which leaves an insane amount of weight left for my crossbar to load even more stuff. My bars supported 150lb, this box weighs 28lb. That left me 122 lb of stuff which I easily used most of of. Most other boxes at this size weigh up to 70lb, meaning I would have to sacrifice the actual stuff it was meant to be carrying, what’s the point of having that much space if you cant use it?Finally this thing is huge. I fit a months worth of wardrobe, all of my camping gear, a fold out table, and my car maintenance kit, weighing over 200 pounds and filling the whole thing to rhe brim, and this thing crushed it, I never had a single issue the entire time I used it.5/5Edit:I’m going to leave it at a 5/5 even though from this point on, I recommend going for a nice thule box if you have the money. I still think bang for buck on a budget this box has everything you need, with some preventable drawbacks, but after about 15000 miles on this box it’s definitely starting to show.The nice flimsy top wobble I commented on has actually gotten better with time, but in a very concerning way. The top has actually become much more flimsy over time, and this has very adverse side effects.The box has 3 anchor points, two latches in the front, and a latch in the back. Having a flimsy top means you can easily pry open the side and just grab things, (or steal them) this same “prying” has started to be done by the winds at top speed.The sides of the box flair up and catch some wind, this doesn’t quite act like a sail (so it doesn’t rip it off the top of your car, but who knows what would happen over another 10k miles) but I had some loosely packed items fly out on my most recent road trip, something I unfortunately could and should have prevented.My best advice would be to just buy a 10$ ratchet strap, and strap down the box, as well as secure the extra items in the box. An annoying and cheap solution for sure, but what else could you expect for saving 400-500$ from a namebrand box.Cheers

It is what it is. As long as you have racks on your roof, it should work. It's essentially from molded plastic with decent hinges and a small lock. Stinks that cheap materials cost so much just because it's for a car, but it is what it is. Not many options. Keeps water out and travels fine if secured properly. Durable enough that it'll take most punishment until you get into bigger hazards. Should fit most racks.